Conan Kudo

The Master

HSPA+ (which HSDPA is the downlink portion of) can be, and there are several operators that do. T-Mobile, AT&T, Bell, Telus, Claro, Digicel, and LIME are a few examples of operators that do this.

That is true. But I expect better from Sprint. I shouldn't need a federal mandate to force that practice to go away...

Shadow Game

Yeah, they are. Not only does the user equipment have to locate a carrier to handover to, it must determine the temporal ratio and synchronize with it. This makes roaming difficult and slower, too.

I'd like to clarify that we are starting to see asymmetric FDD allocations in the wild now. For example, in South Korea, SK Telecom and KT were allocated 35MHz licenses of DCS spectrum in a 20+15 MHz arrangement (20MHz being used for downlink, and 15MHz for uplink). As a result, SK Telecom and KT deployed 15+15 MHz LTE carriers and then used downlink carrier aggregation to append the extra 5MHz as a supplemental downlink channel. There are some major disadvantages to TDD. One of which is that the temporal ratio must be synchronized across all cell sites operating on the same carrier frequencies. Dissimilar temporal ratios can cause interference. This is especially annoying with mid-band spectrum and low-band spectrum because it's harder to control this problem. It makes it very difficult to choose "optimized" time ratios without intentionally creating coverage islands. You don't fully get to choose your time ratio if there are others playing the same sandbox, basically. Another disadvantage is that there is less sensitivity from the base station end and more uplink power required on the device end to make TDD work because OFDMA is used on both uplink and downlink. And of course, OFDMA signals break down more easily at low power levels.

It is in terms of 3GPP band classes, not 3GPP2 band classes. CDMA band classes are defined by the 3GPP2, and they go from 0 to 21. 3GPP band class 27's equivalent band class in 3GPP2 is band class 10. 3GPP2 band class 27 doesn't exist (yet).

That's an invalid band class. CDMA band classes only go up to 21 (starting from 0). UMTS/LTE devices do something similar by identifying as band 0 (which is an invalid band number). Correct me if I'm wrong, but the "out of index" error might refer to the fact that it's trying a band class ID that doesn't exist and trying to reference a CDMA channel number to it?

The numbers haven't been used under the existing area code. That's not the same thing as not allocated. 531 won't be activated until all current numbers have been exhausted.

That doesn't jive with the article saying that unused numbers have been reserved by those phone companies that exist in Omaha and sell service there. Portability rules do not change the fact that phone numbers are still owned by a phone company that owns an exchange. I believe that if T-Mobile could get numbers in Omaha, it would. Perhaps it wants to grab a batch of 531 numbers?

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orange juice

First: I am aware of the number of redundant network options that were available in Omaha. I used to go there a few times when I was younger (I have a family friend that lives there). Second: iwireless does not own Des Moines. T-Mobile sold them the rights to market iwireless within Des Moines using the T-Mobile network. It's a weird, network-sharing style arrangement. It's also the reason why iwireless no longer counts as roaming coverage. Third: LEC availability can totally be the reason. For one, the new 531 area code has not been implemented yet. As of Feb 2013, it is estimated to be three years away from activation. And A.J., with so many networks in Omaha, what do you think happened to all those phone number blocks? They were reserved by the carriers. And most of those carriers got swallowed up into larger giants. T-Mobile has no local exchange in the state. Fourth: Why not just buy Viaero Wireless? It would expand T-Mobile's native coverage throughout the entire state, and the assets are largely complementary. And they'd get Nebraskan phone number access, too.

As far as I know, the only reason T-Mobile doesn't sell service in Omaha (and thus, care more about it) is that they've never been able to get local phone number blocks assigned to them for use in that area. There are ways to buy service, but you don't get a local number. What's the point in doing more for that area if you can't sell phone service there? Probably not, as it's a very demanding job with probably a lower pay scale than what I do now.

Timmy Turner